Veteran's Day
by Endre Tamak
Summary: The rating is for language, and some content. Just moved from 'Ophelia Glace'.
1. Sage

_            Don't spend your teenage years as super-heroes, kids, trust me.  It fucks you up.  Bad.  Take me, for instance.  I have this thing about wolves… I don't like them, and there's nothing my therapist, my earthy-crunchy, all-creatures-are-beautiful girlfriend, or anyone else can do about it.  In my mind wolves = danger = supreme violence.  Don't spend your teenage years super-hero-ing kids; it gets you kicked out of your apartment.  Okay, it got _me _kicked out of my _apartment.  Still, it's a slippery slope and a long way down.  Just avoid it, huh?__

            "What the _hell_ do you mean by that?"  "Just what I said, you smell like them."  "And this is why you're sleeping on the couch?"  "No, I'm sleeping on the couch because there's no room available in my price range."    "You're an asshole, you know that?"  "Me?  I'm Mr. Sensitive.  Not about those fleabags, though."  "You know what?  I'll give you the money just to get you out of my face."

_            Oh, Emmaline._

            "You and Emma on the rocks again?"  "Yeah."  "Man, you guys break up more often than Ryo and Mia."  "That's not humanly possible, stop exaggerating."  "You really need to get over the wolf thing, Sage."  "You need to stop star-gazing."  "That was below the belt.  Astronomers star-gaze for a living.  Can you make 40,000 a year out of lupinophobia?"  "Emmaline paid me eighty bucks to get out of her face."  "Even if she did that every week, you'd need years to break twenty thou."  "Man, and she gets twice that to take care of the filthy bastards."  "I kind of like wolves."  "Traitor."  "That's some language to use on your best friend."  "Sorry.  Traitor to the entire human race."  "Get over yourself.  And more immediately, shut up and go to sleep."

_            Oh, Emmaline.  I love you._

            "Re-introduction?  As in, into the wild?  You realise the entire reason I moved to the States is because you _don't _have wild wolves anymore, right?"  "No, you moved here because you're a co-dependant and Rowen was moving here."  "Can we please leave my mental health out of this?"  "No, see, this is all about your mental health.  Your phobias, your _weird friends, your insistence that I shower whenever I come home from work..."  "I had a very complicated childhood."  "I think you had a very complicated head trauma."    "So why are you still here?"  "Fucked if I know."_

            _She's right, of course.  I'm fucked up beyond belief._

            "Jesus-fucking-Christ.  Did you just hit me?"  "I-" "Get out."  "I-" "Get out of my apartment!"  "But, I-"  "Get out before I call the police!"

            _Get out before she calls the police.  Well-to-do white girl attacked by immigrant, if that doesn't spell deportation, what does?  Oh, Emmaline._

_Our children would have smelled like rain a few miles away.  Oh, Emma._

_I'm sorry._


	2. Rowen

            It's called survivor's guilt, but we all survived.  Why am I guilty?  Stupid question, I know the answer.  I'm happy.  Sage is emotionally handicapped, Ryo lives inside his head, Sai disappeared years ago (he went swimming one day, and didn't come back.  Missing, presumed dead.  He left behind a pregnant fiancée who refuses my offers of monetary support.  I understand the suicide, but did the asshole have to have victims?)  And Kento?  Better left unmentioned.  But me, I'm happy.  I was able to answer my calling in life and still make ends meat, I'm not married, but there's a very promising relationship on the horizon with some one who may not be the man of my dreams (straight, and, as I said, emotionally handicapped), but who knows he doesn't need to be.  Because I love him.  

            So why I am I sitting here with a newly purchased .32?  It's called survivor's guilt.  And I won't actually kill myself.  Because Dana loves me, and would count as a victim.  Thank god for him, assuming some form of god exists.  Otherwise just thank Dana, who is warm, and loving, and doesn't know I have a gun.  I think I'll endeavor to keep it that way.  I don't think he'd like it much.  It would frighten him.  He's just a person, he's not made for the extremes that make us tick.  I'll probably sell this damn thing, I don't know what I'm doing with it.  I always get irrational when this date rolls around.  Our "V.T." day, as Sai put it.  It was a horrible thing to say, considering that three of us were Japanese nationals, but Sai was never good at thinking before he opened his mouth.

            It's funny how we all gravitated towards the U.S.  I mean, I was following the job offers, but the others?  Well, except for Sai, who did his disappearing act off the coast of Cornwall's Lizard Point.  I think we were gravitating towards the youngest group of war veterans we could find.  Our own.  And what's more, with the new breed of American vets, you always get that cheated, "what the hell was going on out there?" feeling that we understand so well.  I think I'm the only one of us who actually remembers his childhood, where he comes from, what he fought for.  Another drop on the ocean of my guilt.  Maybe Dana will marry me, then I can lean on him whenever I'm low (and vice versa, what kind of an ass do I look like?) and that way I know I'll never pull the trigger.

            Pull the trigger?  What happened to selling the gun?  I think I should vacation in England this year, there's a sea-side memorial that needs me to bring it flowers.  God, what sort of flowers are appropriate for that sort of thing?


	3. Ryo

"Dad?"

"What is it, Shizuka?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything.  As long as it's not about sex.  Those questions go to your mother."

She laughs, a pretty laugh, but sad.  She's like her name, beautiful, if you can ignore what it means.

"Dad, I probably understand the whole birds and bees thing better than you do at this point."  We roll our eyes conspiratorially at the kitchen, where the woman I'm almost certain I love is working on the taxes.  She insists.  I cook as often as she lets me.  I hate feeling like an accessory, nice to have, but the outfit's complete without it.

"When you sit there like that, what do you see?"

"Sit here like this?"  Oh God, this I'm not ready for, let her ask anything else.  Let her be pregnant rather than ask me this.

"You know, staring at the fireplace.  What do you see in there?"

            How do I explain to my little girl that in the fire I see a world where she couldn't exist?  How do I explain that I'm seeing the half of my soul that's missing?  It's like a phantom ache, but she can't see the missing limb, so how could I explain it?  How can I explain to this beautiful, vibrant teenage girl, this girl who's already suffered far too much, that I'm seeing a world where she was never born?  And if I had had the choice, I'd have gone that way.

            Mia treats me like a 'nam vet, 'he's been through too much, we could never understand', so she doesn't try.  She just lives in my house and sleeps in my bed.  She does my laundry, and scolds me when I pick up after myself.  She's like a maid, who happens to be the mother of my children.  Oh yes, children.  Twins.

I haven't slept with my wife since they were conceived.  She probably doesn't want to impose on me.  So what do I say to my daughter?

"I see my life."

She is wise beyond her years.

"Do we make you that sad?"

            Dearest Shizuka, I wish I could say no.


	4. Sai

            When I come up, the world shines about me under a pale, waning moon.  A fae gleam trickles slowly down towards the darkness beneath my feet.  The waning moon means the growth of all sorts of ancient darknesses, the waning moon marks the nights when she stands her lonely vigil on the shore, watching.  It is Victorian in its romance, her gazing out over the waves, candle in hand, it still makes me ache.  If only she could know that it works…

            It hurts me to breathe the air now, so I come only in Autumn, and only when the moon is waning.  I do not know how often she is here; I can only hope it is not with every weakening of the light.  Soon, I know, I will come only in October, only on her birthday.  She believes it is a time of personal power, when the lingering remnants of birth magic are at one's disposal.  So she stays longest on this night, willing me out from the waves.

            It will not work; I belong here, and I am no longer human.  I did not notice the changes, but they must have happened that first night, I left my clothes on the edge… 

            It is unbelievably cold in the Atlantic in Autumn, or at least it should be.  I feel it now about my head as blessed coolness, the night air is too warm for me.  My eyes are open, my vision unimpaired by the water, and this sea is so clear, it is a joy to be hear, where I can see everything about me so clearly…


	5. Author's Note

An Apologetic Note From The Author:  
  


            I'm afraid I simply could not bring myself to be morbid enough to write the final piece of this opening quintet, and so the following chapter will be replaced by a medley of the Paul Simon songs, "Somewhere They Can't Find Me", and "Wednesday Morning 3AM."  These are, essentially, the same song, but "Wednesday Morning 3AM," is the older, and slightly more elegant and eloquent version of the verses of "Somewhere They Can't Find Me."  Enjoy.  And please, don't hurt me.  I just didn't have the stomach for it anymore.  Though I promise a re-write of Sai's bit, which fizzled out unfortunately. 


	6. Kento

_"I can hear the soft breathing of the girl that I love_

_as she lies here beside me, asleep with the night,_

_and her hair in a fine mist floats on my pillow,_

_reflecting the glow of the winter moonlight._

**But I've got to creep down the alleyways,**

**fly down the highways.**

**Before they come to catch me I'll be gone - **

**Somewhere they can't find me.**

_She is soft, she is warm, but my heart remains heavy._

_And I watch as her breasts gently rise, gently fall._

_For I know with the first light of dawn I'll be leaving,_

_and tonight will be all I have left to recall._

_Oh what have I done, why have I don't it?_

_I've committed a crime, broken the law._

_For twenty-five dollars and pieces of silver_

_I held up and robbed a hard liquor store._

**I've got to creep down the alleyways,**

**fly down the highways.**

**Before they come to catch me I'll be gone -**

**Somewhere they can't find.**

_My life seems unreal, my crime an illusion,_

_a scene badly written in which I must play._

**(And though it puts me uptight to leave you…)**

_But I know as I gaze at my young love beside me_

**(I know it's not right to leave you…)**

**_the morning is just a few hours away._**


End file.
